Skip to main content

ToyLabs makes STEM fun with its DIY, solar-powered airplane

toy labs volta flyer airplane main
ToyLabs
Your kids will be able to build, launch, learn, and fly with the new Volta Flyer, a solar-powered toy airplane designed by educational toy maker ToyLabs. Unlike other DIY airplane kits, the Volta Flyer mixes a bit of science into the fun, allowing children to learn some mechanical engineering, flight mechanics, and electronics as they assemble the solar flyer. The self-built, science-focused kit can help kids “gain practical insights into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math),” writes ToyLabs in its Kickstarter description.

The Volta Flyer sets itself apart from other hobby planes by using a solar panel to provide the power necessary for motorized flight. No batteries are required to turn the prop, just find some good ole sunshine and your child will be launching his plane skyward. The assembly also is very child-friendly, requiring no glue, special tools, or special skills. It really is as easy as following the instructions and clicking the pieces together. Assembly takes less than 20 minutes, which gives you as much time as you need to decorate the plane with stickers, markers, and more. Once assembled, you only need to wait 90 seconds for it to charge in the sun before it is ready to fly.

ToyLabs has turned to Kickstarter to fund its kit plane idea and is seeking to raise $39,000 to start mass production of the components. For your pledge of $40, you will receive all the parts you need to assemble the plane, including a flexible amorphous silicon solar panel, a fuselage with wing receiver and embedded electronics, two sets of wings and vertical stabilizers, a set of wing joiners, and a set of sticker decals to customize the Flyer. Besides the Flyer, ToyLabs also is selling its Volta Racer, a solar-powered race car for $25. If you want both the car and the plane, you can purchase the pair in the Volta Duo bundle for $65, or you can choose a classroom kit, which contains seven copies of each kit vehicle for $510.

Kelly Hodgkins
Kelly's been writing online for ten years, working at Gizmodo, TUAW, and BGR among others. Living near the White Mountains of…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
Best of CES 2023 Awards Our Top Tech from the Show Feature

Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

Read more
Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Read more
AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Read more